Passenger arrested for attacking airport employees

People check in at Tho Xuan Airport in Thanh Hoa Province. Photo acquired by VnExpress

A male passenger has been arrested by the Thanh Hoa Police for assaulting two aviation employees at Tho Xuan Airport.

Le Van Hung, 38, who was scheduled to board a flight in Thanh Hoa in north central Vietnam to HCMC on June 1, reportedly failed to comply with instructions given by airport staff in charge of security screening and baggage checks.

When they repeated their instructions, he became agitated and got violent, grabbing a security guard by the neck and knocking him down to the ground, media reports said.

Immediately other security staff swooped in on Hung and tried to take him into custody. However, he fiercely resisted and slammed his hand into the forehead of another security employee, causing him to bleed.

He was then handed over to the local police, with the incident deemed serious and threatening the lives of airport staff, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said on Wednesday.

In 2017 a man was fined VND7.5 million ($330) for hitting a Vietjet Air woman employee in the face with his bag after she refused to issue a boarding pass and offered to move his flight to the next day.

The rise of low-cost carriers and the middle class have seen rapid growth in Vietnam’s aviation industry. There were more than 53 million air passengers in the first half of this year, 14 percent up from a year ago.